Method of disintegrating vegetal matter



March 22, 1966 c. R. STEELE METHOD OF DISINTEGRATING VEGETAL MATTEROriginal Filed Nov. 17. 1960 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 H U UU NEU [FIM-5.5.

ATTORNEYS Man-ch 22, 1966 c. R. STEELE METHOD OF DISINTEGRATING VEGETALMATTER Original Filed Nov. 1'7. 1960 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 lFllGf@ IFBCQZ,

IN VEN TOR.

AT TO R NEYS United States Patent C) 3,241,587 METHOD OF DISINTEGRATINGVEGETAL MATTER Clarence R. Steele, Denver, Colo., assiguor, by mesneassignments, to American Factors Associates Limited, Honolulu, Hawaii, acorporation of Delaware Original application Nov. 17, 1960, Ser. No.69,992, now Patent No. 3,137,334, dated June 16, 1964. Divided and thisapplication Aug. 19, 1963, Ser. No. 302,867 6 Claims. (Cl. 146--239)This is a division of application Serial No. 69,992, tiled- November 17,1960, for Disintegrator, now Patent Number 3,137,334.

This invention is directed to a comminutor or disintegrator and moreparticularly to method and means for distintegration and size reductionof vegetal materials.

In the comminution and size reduction of vegetal maiterials, andparticularly brous vegetal materials such as sugar cane, specialdesigns, construction, and method of operation are required becauseVavailable lapparatus used in treatment of other material of similarsize is not suited for treating cer-tain of these vegetal materials,such as sugar cane, having intrinsic moisture or natural sap contentwhich tends .to cause lumping, agglomerating build up or packing ofmaterial in the apparatus. I have found it desirable that ythe material4treated be forced into and through the zone of disintegration andmaintained under pressure during its passage therethrough. Further, myinvention takes 'advantage of this same tendency of such vegetalmaterials to `agglomerate by providing a novel `internal screeningclosure and deliecting structure at a subsequent stage. Thedisintegrating zone includes novel 4hammer members, which reduce thevegetal material -to la finely divided mass, and are des-igned t-oovercome the deleterious effects of tramp iron, stones and the like inthe feed.

Briefly, my invention is comprisedessentially of a housing having aninlet at one end and an outlet `at the opposite end into which cut orchopped materials are force-fed through a restricted feed conduit at thetop. The upper zone of the heus-ing has additional force feedingmechanism which continually pushes or forces the material into `andthrough the disintegrating zone in contact with a plurality ofvertically spaced groups or sets of hingedly mounted hammer members soas to reduce the feed mass to a iinely divided, .substant-iallyhomogeneous mass and exitrude or force it as substantially contiguousrod-like mass through a plurality of large, generrally rectangular,apertures in van internal screening closure. is deflected downwardly Iby`a plurality of vanes or baflies, which tend to choke the discharge fromIthe apertures and aid the extruding process. The downwardly andoutwardly positioning of the vanes or bafes directs the rod-like massesinto contact with impellers which bre-ak up t-he rods :and lumps ofmaterial and eject it for final movement through .the outlet.

Because of the novel hinged or pivotal mounting arrangements for thehammers, tramp iron, rocks, and similiar foreign materials do not damagethe hammers with which they may come in contact. The same hammermounting arrangement and construction also provides multiple selectivearrangements of hammers at various positions in the disintegrating Zone.

It is an object of my invention to provide a simple, efticient tandeconomical method of disin-tegrating vegetal materials which is iadaptedto accommodate variations in properties and characteristics of suchmaterial yby simple adjustments of component parts of the mechanism usedin perfor-ming such methods.

Another object of -this invention is to provide simple,

The material forced through the apertures,

3,241,587 Patented Mar; 22, 1966 durable and eiiicient apparatus f-ordisintegrating vegetal materials which employs a force feeding actioninto, through and out of the disintegrating zone so as to maintain fullcapacity operation over extended periods of treatment.

Still another object is to provide a novel hammer arrangement which notonly accomplishes the desired function of disintegration, but alsoemploys a novel mounting .to prevent damage to the hammers by foreignmaterials passing in contact therewith.

It is la further object of my invention to provide a novel closure andaperture arrangement enclosing the disintegrat-ing zone which takesadvantages of 4inherent characteristics of material being processed toobtain a superior disintegration.

Other features and advantages yof my invention, including novel detailsof construction `and combinations and arrangements of parts, willlbecome obvious to those skilled in the `art fromthe followingdescription in which reference is made to the appended exemplarydrawings. In these drawings:

FIG. l is `a partially broken side elevation of disintegrating apparatusembodying features of my inventive concept;

FIG. 2 is a section along the line 2-2 of FIG. l;

FIG. 3 is a partial section taken along the line 3--3 of FIG. l;

FIG, 4 is an alternative arrangement of hammer elements of a device`such =as shown in FIG. 1; and

FIG. 5 is a developed elevation of .a portion of the enclosure for `thedisintegration zone in the apparatus of FIG. l.

Before describing rthe drawings in detail, it should be understood thatI do not wish to be limited thereby, but rather by the spirit and scopeof my invention as defined in the hereafter appended claims. Apparatusfeatures disclosed but not claimed herein have been claimed in mycopending application referred to previously.

A disintegrator according to my inventive .concepts is shown in FIG. 1as includ-ing ta generally tubular central 'housing section 10 connectedbetween a discharge casing "11 and -a-n upper housing 12 by means suchas bolts '13 and 14, respectively. Mounted on the .top of the housing 12is a housing 15 for supporting a power source 16 such as an electricmotor.

The disintegrator` preferably has an upper feed distributing zone 17with a positive feed mechanism .therein comprised of a plurality ofvertically spaced impellers preferably in the form of the verticallymounted double screw conveyor 18. The conveyor 18 is mounted on acentral shaft 19 which is suitably supported by the bearing arrangement'20 yand forms an extension. of the power take off shaft 21 of the motor16. A second positive feed mechanism, also preferably a screw conveyor,and shown as double screw conveyor 25, extends through a housing 26adjoining a side of housing `12 at the top of distributing zone 17 toprovide Va force feed to said zone and a hopperZS delivers the feed intohousing 26. The shaft portion 27 ofthe conveyor 25 extends outwardly forinterconnection with a power source (not shown).

A disintegrating zone is disposed below the upper feed distributing zone17 and receives the vegetal material force fed by conveyor 18. A housingor closure 31 forms an annular extension of housing 12 and hasaplurality of parallel rows of enlarged apertures 32 (see FIG. 5) whichin commercial devices may be of the approximate dimensions of two andone-half inches wide by four inches high. The height of the closuremember 31 is a substantial portion of the length of the central housingor casing 10 and preferably is about onehalf the height thereof.

As shown in FIG. 5, the apertures 32 are arranged in upper and lowerrows, and batlles such as baffles 33 and 34, extend at a downwardinclination from the top of each row in substantially parallelrelationship. Baftles 33 extend outwardly beyond baflles 34 in spacedrelation to housing and define passages of substantially uniform sizefrom top to bottom. As shown in FIG. 3, baflle 34 is formed in twosections 34a and 34h having end flanges 34C secured by bolts 34d. Batlle33 may be assembled in the same way.

The lower end of the shaft 19 is maintained in a thrust-bearingrelationship with a lower housing 35 by a supporting spider assembly 36.A plurality of vertically spaced hammer members 37 are supported on theshaft 19 for Conjoint rotation therewith in substantially horizontalpaths. The preferred manner of mounting these hammers is to sandwichthem between a spacer 40 and a collar 41 disposed directly above andbelow each hammer 37. This arrangement is repeated and continued alongthe shaft from the top to bottom of the disintegrating zone. The collarsand hammers are held together in the sandwich by elongated bolt and nutarrangements such as and 45a.

In FIG. 3 it will be seen that the collar members 4I are keyed to theshaft 19 by an elongated key 42 tting in opposed complementary slots inthe collars and shaft. With this arrangement, each of the hammers 37 isadapted for limited horizontal pivotal movement, between pins 43, normalto the shaft. These pins are spaced at regular intervals around thecollars, and will be referred to in more detail hereinafter. The dottedline 44 in FIG. 3 is indicative of the range or magnitude of pivotalmovement of the hammers 37.

One or a plurality of impellers are mounted on shaft 19 below thehammers 37 for conjoint rotation therewith to intercept falling materialdischarged through openings 32. In the drawings, I have shown a pair ofhinged impellers and Sll spaced 180 relative to each other and mountedin the same horizontal plane. The outer ends of the impellers aredisposed in closely spaced relation to housing 10 so as to contactfalling material throughout the entire area of housing 14D.

The pins 43 are arranged for selective interchangeable and staggeredarrangements for mounting the hammers 37, such as the arrangement shownin FIG. 4, wherein the uppermost collar shown has three hammers mountedthereon. The collar below the uppermost, also has three hammers but theyare staggered in non-equiangular relation to the uppermost hammers.

In assembling the hammers for a given operation, the spacing positionsare selected and elongated bolts such as 45 or 45a are .passed throughaligned openings in the collars 4l and hammers 37. After securing thehammer spacing in this manner, pins 4.3 are inserted into the remainingopenings so as to act as stops for limiting pivotal movement of thehammers.

In operation, a disintegrator such as shown in the drawings may beplaced in a conventional material treatment circuit such as a sugar canerefinery. The material which is fed to the disintegrator will have beenpreviously reduced to about three or four inch lengths and is fed intothe feed hopper 28 and thence into contact with the positive feed means,or double screw conveyor 25. The rotating conveyor 25 in housing 26forces the confined material into the upper feed zone I7. The doublescrew conveyor or positive feed means M rotating therein on the shaft19, forces the material down into and through the intermediatedisintegrating zone into contact with a plurality of vertically spacedsets or groups of hammers 37. The hammers also are moving in conjointrotation with the shaft and they hammer and break up the material fed incontact therewith. The comminuted material is forced through theapertures 32 and because of the close spacing between the closure andthe ends of the hammers and the inherent tendency of the material, suchas vegetal materials to lump and agglomerate, such material isdischarged through openings 32 as a rod-like extrusion. The rod-likemasses of material passing through the apertures are subjected to thechoking influence of the outwardly and downwardly extending baillemembers 33 and 34. The deflected material then passes into contact withthe impellers 50 and 5l which are also moving in conjoint rotation withthe shaft I9. These impellers break up the rods and lumps of materialwhich then fall through the casing 11 in a loosened or fluffy conditionfor disposition at any stage of the refinery operation.

Any tramp iron, rocks, and other relatively hard foreign material whichis included in the feed material will not damage the hammers orimpellers because of their pivotal hinged arrangement wherein uponcontacting such hard materials, they pivot or move out of contacttherewith, without damage to the hammers.

When different consistencies or toughness of feed materials areencountered, selective arrangement of the hammers between theirrespective collars may be made to provide increased etlciency. Forinstance, if a relatively tough material is being encountered, theuppermost collars may have only two or three hammers therebetween. Thenumber of hammers in progressively lower series can then be increasedand/ or staggered with relation to the uppermost, to thereby obtain thedesired consistency in the disintegrated product.

A distinctive feature of the structural arrangement previously describedis the provision of a space of substantial vertical extent between thelowermost hammer member and the impellers 5t) and 51 which permitspassage of material outwardly into impact relationship with saidimpellers and discharge in a fluffy consistency distant from the shaftrather than packing around said shaft as otherwise might occur.

Another distinctive feature of the arrangement is the choking effect onthe intermediate zone deriving from the position of batlles 33 and 34,which cause material in the intermediate zone to be delayed inwardly ofthe periphery of the enclosure before discharge through the apertures32. Most of the hammer action is directed against material aligned withsaid openings rather than material located between the walls of closure31 and the outer ends of hammers 37, thereby preventing an acceleratedpassage of material through the intermediate zone and assuring adequatehammer impact to attain the desired reduction before such materialpasses out of the discharge apertures 32.

Having thus described my invention, what I desire to have protected byLetters Patent is set forth in the following claims.

I claim:

l. The method of disintegrating materials, which comprises force feedinga stream of feed material to be disintegrated through a restricted zone,forcibly directing the said feed material from said restricted zone in adirection substantially normal to its previous movement into adisintegrating zone, moving the feed material through saiddisintegrating zone in contact with a plurality of vertically spaceddisintegrating hammers and through restricted openings in thedisintegrating zone so as to extrude the material from saiddisintegrating zone as substantially contiguous rod-like masses, andsubjecting the rod-like masses to an impacting action during movementaway from said disintegrating zone.

2. The method of disintegrating materials, which cornprises forcefeeding a stream of feed material to be disintegrated through arestricted zone into a disintegrating zone, passing the feed materialthrough said disintegrating zone in contact with a plurality ofvertically-spaced, rotary disintegrating hammers to reduce the material,extruding the material from said disintegrating Zone as contiguousrod-like masses of material, deilecting said contiguous rods of materialaway from the disintegrating zone in a retarded movement to a point ofgravitational movement, subjecting the extruded rod-like masses ofmaterial to an impacting action during said gravitational movement, andremoving the material therefrom through an outlet for disposition.

3. The method of disintegrating materials, which comprises force feedinga stream of feed material to be disintegrated in a compacting movementthrough a restricted horizontally extending zone, forcibly directing thefeed material from said restricted zone through a restricted verticallyextending z-one into a confined disintegrating zone of substantialvertical extent, moving the descending feed material through saiddisintegrating zone in contact with a succession of vertically spaceddisintegrating hammers so as to reduce and compact the material,extruding the material from said disintegrating zone through restrictedopenings as substantially contiguous rod-like masses, and subjecting therod-like -masses to an impacting action during gravitational movementaway from `said disintegrating zone so as to produce a tluly consistencyin the disintegrated material. t 4. The method of disintegratingmaterials, which comprises force feeding a stream of feed material to bedisintegrated in a compacting movement through a restricted horizontallyextending zone, forcibly directing the feed material from saidrestricted zone through a restricted vertically extending zone into aconfined disintegrating zone of substantial vertical extent, moving thedescending feed material through said disintegrating zone in contactwith a succession of vertically spaced disintegrating hammers so as toreduce the feed material to a nely divided homogeneous material,extruding the homogeneous material from said disintegrating zone throughrestricted openings as substantially contiguous rod-like masses,deflecting the extruded material away from the disintegrating zone in aretarded movement to a point of gravitational movement, and subjectingthe extruded rod-like masses to an impacting action during saidgravitational movement.

5. The method of disintegrating materials, which comprises force feedinga stream of feed material to be disintegrated in a compacting movementthrough a restricted horizontally extending zone, forcibly directing thefeed material from said restricted zone in a vertical extendingrestricted zone into a conned disintegrating zone of substantialvertical extent, moving the descending feed material through saiddisintegrating zone in contact with a succession of vertically spaceddisintegrating hammers so as to reduce and agglomerate the material,extruding the agglomerated material from said disintegrating zonethrough horizontally extending restricted openings in a retardedmovement as substantially contiguous rod-like masses, and breaking therod-like masses into loose lluify material by a succession of impactingactions applied during gravitational movement away from saiddisintegrating zone.

6. The method of disintegrating materials, which comprises force feedinga stream of feed material to be disintegrated in a compacting movementthrough a restricted horizontally extending zone, forcibly directing`the feed material from said restricted zone through a restrictedvertically extending zone to a confined disintegrating zone ofsubstantial vertical extent, moving the descending feed material throughsaid disintegrating zone in contact with a succession of verticallyspaced rotating disintegrating hammers so as to reduce and agglomeratethe material, extruding the agglomerated material under centrifugalinfluence from said disintegrating zone through horizon- :tallyextending restricted openings as substantially contiguous rod-likemasses, deflecting the extruded material downwardly from thedisintegrating zone to a release point of gravitational movement, andbreaking the falling rod-like masses into loose uffy material by asuccession of impacting actions during gravitational movement away fromsaid disintegrating zone.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 287,360 10/1883Bell 146-192 i 2,545,159 3/1951 McGihon 146-175 X 2,952,288 9/1960Schnell 146--192 FOREIGN PATENTS 285,918 7/1915 Germany.

ROBERT C. RIORDON, Primary Examiner.

I. SPENCER OVERHOLSER, Examiner.

1. THE METHOD OF DISINTEGRATING MATERIALS, WHICH COMPRISES FORCE FEEDINGA STREAM OF FEED MATERAIL TO BE DISINTEGRATED THROUGH A RESTRICTED ZONE,FORCIBLY DIRECTING THE SAID FEED MATERIAL FROM SAID RESTRICTED ZONE IN ADIRECTION SUBSTANTIALLY NORMAL TO ITS PREVIOUS MOVEMENT INTO ADISINTEGRATING ZONE, MOVING THE FEED MATERIAL THROGUH SAIDDISINTEGRATING ZONE IN CONTACT WITH A PLURALITY OF VERTICALLY SPACEDDISINTEGRATING HAMMERS AND THROUGH RESTRICTED OPENINS IN THEDISINTEGRATING ZONE SO AS TO EXTRUDE THE MATERIAL FROM SAIDDISINTEGRATING ZONE AS SUBSTANTIALLY CONTIGUOUS ROD-LIKE MASSES, ANDSUBJECTING THE ROD-LIKE MASSES TO AN IMPACTING ACTION DURING MOVEMENTAWAY FROM SAID DISINTEGRATION ZONE.